Human Impact Project

During a Sept. 4 ICE raid in Dover, N.J., a Honduran man was picked up on his way to work, loaded into a van, and taken with nine other detained men to a warehouse in nearby Roxbury, where they were handcuffed and held in a parking lot for hours. Frightened, he signed deportation papers and said he regretted it the next morning; NPR later located him in Honduras, where he had been deported, and he requested anonymity out of fear for loved ones still in the U.S. During the same raid, a 59-year-old worker was cornered against a wall by two masked ICE agents in footage that later circulated on social media. His daughter recognized him in the video and received a disoriented call from him afterward saying he was handcuffed somewhere she believed was the Roxbury warehouse; she has not been able to reach him since and asked not to be named for fear of being targeted.

Orville Etoria, a Jamaican man transferred by the United States to Eswatini under its third-country deportation program, described in a deposition being held in extreme isolation during his first weeks at Matsapha Correctional Complex, a maximum-security prison. He said he was barred from communicating with anyone outside the prison for two and a half weeks, confined to his cell except to be fed, and treated 'as if we were violent, even though we had done nothing wrong,' until guards came to see the US government's portrayal of detainees as false.

At the GEO Group-run Folkston D. Ray James ICE Processing Center in Georgia, at least 73 detained immigrants launched a hunger strike protesting prolonged detention and facility conditions, including asylum seekers from Russia, China, Sudan, Afghanistan, Nepal and Yemen held from 16 months to nearly three years without being charged with a crime. The strike followed a video recorded by four detainees using the facility's video-calling software, including Russian asylum seeker Idris Makhmudov, who said he has been held for 27 months and described dysfunctional immigration courts and poor conditions. Attorney Samantha Hamilton said everyone who appeared in the video was placed in segregation as retaliation, and Makhmudov was reportedly held in solitary confinement. Separately, 45 detainees wrote an open letter detailing conditions, with detainees and advocates alleging substandard medical care, moldy or nearly inedible food, dirty water containing worms, and detainees developing diabetes and high blood pressure. Makhmudov said most detainees at the facility are asylum seekers fleeing persecution.

Luis Caiza, an asylum seeker from Ecuador with a work permit and no criminal record, was pulled from his car and thrown to the ground during a traffic stop in Maple Grove, Minnesota, part of ICE's Operation Metro Surge in the Twin Cities. His wife, Marjorie Flores, said officers kneed and kicked him while he was down, then pulled her from the car, threw her onto the icy street, and pointed a weapon at her as she pleaded that their three children, Camila, Sneyder, and Emilio, were at home. Caiza has since been held for nearly 10 months at the Torrance County Detention Facility in New Mexico, where he has described tooth infections, inadequate food, lack of clean clothing, and severe delays receiving legal mail. He said video calls with his children have become too painful to continue. His attorney, Danielle Molliver, disputes a judge's finding that he is a flight risk due to prior DWIs and has filed a second petition challenging his prolonged detention while his asylum appeal, which he recently lost, remains pending. Flores now works three jobs totaling 93 hours a week to support their children.

Melanie Tinoco, a 29-year-old mother of two from Ecuador who fled in 2024 after mafia threats, was arrested by Boston police at a Target over an alleged shoplifting incident her family calls a misunderstanding involving Uber Eats shopping. She has a pending asylum application, a valid work permit, and no prior criminal record. After being released from the District 4 police station, plainclothes ICE agents detained her outside without showing identification or a warrant, according to her husband Martin Gurfinkiel, who witnessed the arrest. She has since been held at the Burlington ICE processing center, where her family says agents injured her wrists and she has struggled to access her prescribed anxiety medication, reporting sleepless nights and panic attacks. Her husband is now caring alone for their two children, including a 7-year-old son with autism who has struggled emotionally without her. Her attorneys have filed a federal habeas petition seeking her release, citing her scheduled 2027 immigration court hearing and alleging a possible violation of Boston's Trust Act limiting police cooperation with ICE.

Yasmani Noel Moreno de Armas, a 31-year-old Cuban who arrived in Florida by raft in 2016 under the 'Wet Foot, Dry Foot' policy and ran a small trucking business between Miami and Tampa to help support his parents near Orlando, was detained by ICE in West Palm Beach on May 11, 2025, after his green card bid under the Cuban Adjustment Act was denied. He was held for about a year before being deported in late July/August 2026 not to Cuba but to the Central African Republic on a roughly 21-22 hour shackled flight, learning his destination only hours into the trip. Moreno, who manages diabetes and asthma, said the flight left him ill and triggered an anxiety attack. He is now confined at the Maison Confort lodging in Bangui alongside migrants from Afghanistan, Vietnam and Russia, without a passport, visa or legal status, suffering stomach problems and allergies, and says he was kidnapped twice by armed men he believed were security forces, with family and a fellow detainee paying about $100 for his release. A Cuban embassy representative told him Cuba would not take him back because he left as a 'rafter' migrant, and he fears returning there given a past imprisonment for trying to flee. 'They brought us here illegally,' he said, adding his parents 'went crazy, crying and yelling' when he told them where he was; his attorney is negotiating with federal officials for his return.

Martin Soto, a Peruvian immigrant and father of two, was arrested by ICE agents in February 2026 while buying diapers in Kearny, New Jersey, and detained at the Delaney Hall facility in Newark. He helped lead a hunger and labor strike protesting poor food and inadequate medical care, and in late May agents broke through a protester blockade to transfer him overnight to solitary confinement at the Elizabeth Detention Center, where his lawyer said he was held for months in what she called retaliation for his activism. His wife, Gabriela Soto, a U.S. citizen, organized rallies outside the facility and said she lost her pregnancy in July after an emergency C-section, delivering the news to her husband while he was in solitary; his lawyer said he had suicidal thoughts during this period. After roughly nine months in custody, a federal judge cited the conditions of his detention and lack of justification for continued confinement, and Soto was released and reunited with his family, though fitted with an ankle monitor despite having no criminal record. ICE data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit showed more than 700 detainees were transferred out of Delaney Hall, which advocates said was an attempt to break the strike; a Homeland Security spokesperson disputed the data's accuracy.

Jose Mejia Hernandez, a 45-year-old Mexican immigrant who has lived in the U.S. for 18 years and works two jobs in commercial cleaning and office maintenance, was walking to a bus stop near Columbia Pike in Arlington, Virginia on August 11 when plainclothes, masked ICE agents in an unmarked vehicle approached him without identifying themselves. He fled, was shocked with a stun gun, and was struck by a vehicle, suffering two black eyes, facial lacerations, brain swelling, and a subarachnoid brain bleed; witnesses described the impact as hitting "human flesh." He was hospitalized for several days at George Washington University Hospital with ICE officers stationed in his room, returned for an MRI days later due to worsening symptoms, and was later fitted with an ankle monitor he says delayed further medical testing. His attorneys say a hospital employee had to demand he be placed in a bed and given an interpreter, and that he now struggles to eat, sleep, speak normally, or work. They have filed a police report seeking criminal charges, notified federal agencies under the Federal Tort Claims Act, filed a $35 million excessive force claim, and are pursuing a U visa on his behalf. DHS disputes his account, saying officers used necessary force after he attempted to flee and denying he was ever unconscious, while citing a prior voluntary return to Mexico and a 2020 public intoxication conviction. He has been placed in deportation proceedings, and Arlington County Police have opened an investigation. Virginia officials including Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner and Reps. Don Beyer, Suhas Subramanyam and James Walkinshaw have criticized the circumstances of his arrest, which occurred during a broader ICE enforcement surge that led to roughly 1,300 arrests across the D.C. area in August.

Elder Chavez Carranza, an 18-year-old junior at Asbury High School in Albertville, Alabama, was detained by ICE on December 30, 2025, after a state trooper stopped him for speeding and driving without a license and contacted immigration officials. Chavez Carranza, originally from Copan, Honduras, fled violence and poverty and entered the U.S. at age 14, later being granted Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, though a separate deferred-action and green card application remains unresolved. He is held at Winn Correctional Center in Louisiana, where he says he has lacked adequate food and dental care, works as a painter earning $1 per day, and shares a room with 54 other men. His sister and legal guardian, Maryuri Chavez Carranza, a former teacher, said he calls her daily and misses his teachers, friends, senior year activities, and the birth of his nephew. By September 2026 he had spent more than 200 days in detention, as advocates including Angela Del Valle organized vigils across three states and raised concerns about conditions at Winn, where two detainees had died in less than two months.

Delaney Hall, a for-profit ICE detention center in Newark, faced scrutiny after detainees began a hunger strike and reported spoiled food, lack of medical care, and inadequate gynecological services, including an 18-year-old high school student and a woman who said she miscarried without assistance. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was handcuffed and arrested on trespassing charges while visiting the facility with congressional representatives, repeating 'I'm not resisting' as agents restrained him; he was held for five hours before charges were dropped. Rep. LaMonica McIver, who stood between Baraka and ICE agents during the visit, was later charged with three felony counts of assaulting federal agents after the government claimed she had 'slammed' an agent; she is still fighting the case. Days later, on Memorial Day, Senator Andy Kim visited to mediate between protesters and detainees, standing with arms raised between armed ICE agents and the crowd before agents fired tear gas and pepper balls at him and demonstrators, leaving him needing aid for burning eyes and throat. New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill was denied entry but heard from detainees' family members about conditions inside.

Godfrey Wade, a 65-year-old Jamaican-born U.S. Army veteran and lawful permanent resident who came to the U.S. at 15 in 1975, was deported to Jamaica on February 5, 2026, while his appeal remained pending before the Board of Immigration Appeals. Wade worked as a chef, tailor, tennis coach and fashion designer while raising six children and three grandchildren with his fiancée April Watkins. He was detained by ICE for nearly five months following a September 2025 traffic stop for driving without a valid license, held at Stewart Detention Center in Georgia and later Richwood in Louisiana, where he endured overcrowding, inadequate food, a water outage, and illness that caused significant weight loss. His deportation stemmed from a 2014 in absentia removal order tied to a 2008 misdemeanor bounced-check conviction, after immigration court notices were mistakenly sent to the wrong address. His daughter said he was removed without warning, arriving in Jamaica with only the clothes he wore before being hospitalized for pneumonia; his fiancée and daughter said he drew portraits of fellow detainees to lift their spirits and have since raised funds and a petition seeking him a day in court. In October, a Douglas County Superior Court judge granted his habeas corpus petition, voiding the 2008 conviction and giving him a new chance to fight his case, which remains pending before the Board of Immigration Appeals.

Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez, a 28-year-old Venezuelan asylum seeker who entered the U.S. legally through CBP One in 2024 and held a valid work permit, was shot in the back by an ICE agent on September 20, 2026, during a traffic stop while delivering for DoorDash in North Austin. Federal prosecutors allege he struck an officer with his car's side mirror and fled, while he says an unmarked ICE vehicle rammed and spun his car before he was shot, unaware it belonged to ICE. He suffered a fractured clavicle and a bullet lodged near his spine causing partial paralysis, and his attorney said he faced risk of infection without surgery and received no pain medication in custody. A federal magistrate judge found prosecutors had not clearly shown he was a danger to the community but ruled him a flight risk and denied bond; his attorney said he would pursue a habeas corpus case. He faces DOJ charges of assaulting, resisting and impeding a federal officer carrying up to 20 years in prison, which his defense disputes, and a separate deportation order prompted his attorneys to sue to block removal. The shooting, partly captured on bystander video, prompted protests of over 150 people and calls from Rep. Greg Casar, Mayor Kirk Watson, and Rep. Joaquin Castro for an independent investigation and release of body-camera footage.

Christian Omar González, a 27-year-old Cuban man living in Hialeah, Florida, has been held at an ICE facility in Miramar for nearly two months after being arrested on August 5 while riding as a passenger to his job in West Palm Beach. His mother and grandmother have publicly pleaded for his release, with his mother saying 'mi niño no es ningún delincuente,' insisting he has no criminal record. ICE said he was arrested during a joint operation with the Florida Highway Patrol following alleged traffic violations, though the vehicle's driver, U.S. citizen Luis Villalba, disputes that account and says he was never ticketed. González left Cuba in 2022 to avoid mandatory military conscription after the July 11 protests, and his asylum case is pending; a bail request was denied because he was classified as an 'arriving alien,' a category that bars the immigration judge from granting bond. His family says they have taken on debt trying to secure his release, and his attorneys note his case coincides with a pending U.S. Supreme Court review of whether ICE can detain migrants in this category without bond. The Miramar facility where he is held has reportedly held as many as 342 people despite an official capacity of 56.

Johnny Sebastián Lucas Barre, a 38-year-old Ecuadorian man held at the Folkston ICE Processing Center in Georgia, says agents handcuffed and beat him after he refused to sign a deportation order and provide fingerprints without a lawyer present. He said three agents threw him against a wall, struck him, and placed a foot near his head until he lost consciousness, later waking up in a wheelchair receiving medical attention and showing visible bruises on his wrists and body. His partner, Leidy Montalvo, said he had been working in the facility kitchen for a dollar a day when agents repeatedly pressured him to sign his deportation paperwork, and she has shared photos of his injuries publicly. Lucas Barre entered the U.S. through Texas in 2024 and was detained again in December after reporting a change of address at an immigration appointment in Orlando, Florida; he has a pending asylum/immigration appeal but no longer has a lawyer because he could not afford to continue paying for one. Immigration attorneys said fingerprints or a signature obtained while someone is unconscious would not be legally valid. Lucas Barre has since filed a federal habeas corpus petition against the facility's warden, which remains pending after the warden moved to dismiss it and his attorney filed a response opposing dismissal.

A 26-year-old refugee known only as Adam, who fled forced military conscription, was granted protection from removal by a US immigration judge but was secretly deported to Equatorial Guinea in November 2025 under a third-country removal deal. He has been confined alone in a hotel room under armed guard for nearly a year, and was recently handcuffed and beaten by security officers who warned him not to speak out.

Carlos Moreno, a Venezuelan asylum seeker who is legally blind and hard of hearing, was detained by ICE agents in March 2026 as he and his wife, Wendys Martinez, left a Schuylkill County courthouse after paying a $277 noise citation for playing music at their Pottsville home. He was transferred through a York processing facility and Moshannon Valley Processing Center before arriving at Cambria County Prison, roughly 200 miles from home, where he says staff failed to keep his hearing aids charged, never fixed his broken cane, and did not provide promised translation services, forcing him to rely on other detainees to interpret and leaving him largely confined to his cell for nearly six months. Moreno said the conditions pushed him to consider abandoning his asylum appeal; after his appeal deadline passed, Martinez gave birth to their son alone on the Fourth of July. Cambria County, which has earned more than $1.5 million detaining immigrants like Moreno under a federal agreement, later transferred him to facilities in Louisiana and then Texas to await deportation to Venezuela. Cambria County's warden said Moreno received adequate care but declined to provide details, citing privacy and security procedures.

Geraldo Lunas Campos, a 55-year-old Cuban migrant and father of four who suffered from asthma, bipolar disorder and anxiety, died on January 3, 2026, at Camp East Montana, an ICE detention facility at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, following a physical altercation with guards. Fellow detainee Antonio Frometa Ascón, who knew Campos from Guantánamo, said he watched guards beat and handcuff Campos as he begged for his inhaler; other witnesses heard him scream 'I can't breathe!' before he was taken away and never returned. A separate detainee, Gonzalo, who had survived a 12-day journey through the Darién Gap marked by violence and robbery, described witnessing guards put a foot on a cellmate's neck during a protest over detention conditions, an account consistent with Campos's death. The El Paso County Medical Examiner ruled the death a homicide from asphyxia due to neck and torso compression. DHS maintains guards were trying to save Campos's life, while a GAO report found the facility's contractor failed to provide required reports and that evidence was missing or destroyed. No one has been charged; his death was among 37 detainee deaths in ICE custody reported since last fall, the deadliest year on record for the agency.

Lianyong Wei, a 51-year-old Chinese national who had lived in Saipan since entering the U.S. in 2019 on a two-week parole authorization, died in ICE custody at the Northern Mariana Islands Department of Corrections. Local police had arrested Wei on August 21, 2026, on criminal charges including an alleged attack on a family and assault with a dangerous weapon, and he was transferred to ICE custody the next day to face removal proceedings. He was found dead with a bedsheet tied to his bunk and around his neck, with reports differing on whether he was discovered unresponsive during a routine morning check less than a day after entering custody or two days later; resuscitation efforts at a hospital failed. It remains unclear whether he received a required medical intake screening. Corrections Commissioner Anthony Torres extended condolences to Wei's family and said the department is reviewing its procedures. His cause of death remains under investigation, and the Chinese Consulate General in Los Angeles has demanded a thorough inquiry, noting he is at least the fifth Chinese national to die in ICE or Border Patrol custody since March 2025. His death has been recorded among dozens of detainee deaths reported by ICE since 2025.

Claudia Carolina Rodríguez Caglianone, a 28-year-old Venezuelan immigrant who served as captain of St. Thomas University's soccer team and earned bachelor's and master's degrees there, was detained by ICE at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on July 31, 2026, while trying to board a domestic flight. She had entered the U.S. in 2017 on a tourist visa, applied for asylum within six months, and held Temporary Protected Status until it expired in October. Her family said she was held for eight days at the Miramar ICE field office without being able to shower or change clothes, losing 15 pounds, before being transferred to facilities including the Broward Transitional Center and Pompano Beach. Her former coach praised her leadership and character. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz visited the facility, criticized ICE for detaining 'law-abiding residents like Claudia,' and raised concerns about hundreds of similar detainees, with the resulting public pressure contributing to her eventual release.

Musa Sheriff, a Liberian citizen who was admitted to the U.S. as a refugee in 1999, has been held since ICE arrested him on March 2, 2025 at a scheduled check-in, after facing deportation over a criminal threatening charge filed five years after his arrival. He is detained in the ICE section of the Federal Correctional Institution at Lewisburg, and in August filed a habeas petition arguing his prolonged 19-month detention violated his due process rights. U.S. Middle District Judge Matthew W. Brann ruled in his favor, finding his confinement conditions were indistinguishable from criminal punishment, and ordered the government to release him on his own recognizance or provide an individualized bond hearing by October 9.